Real
by dragonflybeach
Summary: Because all those little moments that brought them to where they are, they weren't real. Were they?
1. Chapter 1

This is my entry for the Draco/Luna one-shot category from .net/topic/44309/59591723/1/

My prompts were: loquacious, fall apart, brief.

* * *

Draco stomped out of the Room of Requirement cursing under his breath. Out of stubbornness and familiarity of having walked the same path so many times in the dark, he refused to light his wand.

Which is why he walked right into the back of the girl sitting on the top step, and would have fallen down the stairs if she hadn't caught him with a quietly muttered spell.

He angrily lit his wand then, to find Luna Lovegood sitting in the middle of the floor.

"What the fuck, Loony?" he demanded.

"You are so very hurting and alone Draco. You can tell me. I will listen."

"Shut up!" he growled, finding his feet and stomping away.

* * *

From time to time he would find her, almost as if she were waiting for him.

She would always give him a sad smile, and if he paused for the merest second, she would invite him to talk to her.

But he couldn't talk to a living soul about this task that loomed before him, about the certain death that awaited either him or an innocent man, so his confidante became a ghost. A transparent girl with dead eyes who tried to comfort him, but whose touch passed through him.

The task came and went, not as planned of course, but well enough that he survived to be tortured by Voldemort another day and be given further tasks that he didn't want. Including raising an army among the Slytherins at Hogwarts. He still found Luna waiting for him at times, but she had stopped asking him to confide in her. She just gave him her sad smile and watched him walk on.

* * *

The week before Christmas, the snatchers brought a second prisoner to Malfoy Manor. He told himself that it didn't bother him, that he was doing his Death Eater duty when he was ordered to take food to the cellar that night. That it was no different to take food to two prisoners instead of one.

She sat near the door in the large room. The old man snored on his pallet against the back wall.

"Hello Draco." She greeted him with the same sad smile.

She didn't beg, plead, rage or cry.

Draco threw down the tray with a clatter and sprinted back up the stairs.

* * *

Wormtail was called upon more often to serve the Dark Lord, and somehow Draco became designated to carry the twice daily meals to the prisoners.

He always found her in the same spot. She always smiled at him.

On the fourth day, his curiosity got the better of him.

"Does the old man sleep around the clock?" he asked her.

"He awakes here and there during the day." She looked over her shoulder toward the person she couldn't quite see in the darkness. "I thought perhaps there was a niffler nest in the wall near him. They sing, you know, to lull humans to sleep so they can steal shiny objects. But I sat near him most of the day yesterday and never felt tired." She looked up sadly. "I wish I had, because now I believe he's just ill."

Draco nodded, then turned and left, barely remembering to leave the tray behind.

* * *

His brief visits to the cellar gradually became longer and longer. He would ask about Ollivander each morning, and Luna would tell him there was no change. Once in a while she would ask about things outside the cellar. If it was terribly cold outside. If the other students had returned to Hogwarts. Why Draco had not returned to Hogwarts.

He actually had. He just returned to the Manor every night and went back to school in time for class in the mornings. The fact that his godfather had been appointed headmaster on the Dark Lord's orders gave Draco the right to access the private floo connection. He told himself it was because he had enemies within the school now. That he was safer sleeping in his own bed at home after Theo Nott had tried to break into Draco's room at Hogwarts.

It wasn't because he was afraid that no one would feed the prisoners.

He didn't care if anyone fed them or not.

Really.

* * *

He had been back at school for two weeks when he had a run in with Longbottom. Apparently the sniveling Gryffindor had taken offense to Draco trying to recruit a few Ravenclaws who had not thrown in their allegiance with Potter.

They had dueled fairly evenly for three full minutes before Alecto Carrow came along and broke things up. Longbottom was given detention for a week. Draco was sent to his room without dinner.

He didn't go. He went to Snape's office and flooed home, where he ate a lovely dinner prepared by the Malfoy house elves.

After dinner, he took the tray to the cellar. Luna sat by the door, waiting, as always.

She gave him the same sad smile.

"You look … concerned." She tilted her head.

"I had a bad day." He grumbled.

"Tell me about it." She offered.

The thought crossed his mind, why not? It wasn't like there was anyone she could tell. The only company she ever had were himself and an old man who slept about twenty hours per day. Even if one of the other Death Eaters came down and she spilled his secrets to them, who would believe her anyway?

So he did. He sat down and told her about having more enemies than friends at school. About having to watch his back and coming home at night so he didn't have to sleep with one eye open.

She listened quietly, nodding when appropriate, and smiled at him.

It was just his imagination that he felt better after talking to her.

Really.

* * *

The next night, she asked him about his day, and he told her, although nothing of tremendous importance had happened.

He told himself that it didn't feel nice that someone cared enough to ask, even if the person was Loony Lovegood. He almost believed it.

The mornings didn't change. Draco didn't have much time to deliver the tray before he had to get to school, so they just exchanged their one or two sentences. Ollivander began coughing, and two days later, Luna thought he had a fever.

Draco could do little other than to urge her to stay on her side of the room. He had mentioned the matter upstairs, and was told that the old man was of little use any more. No one above stairs truly cared if he lived or died.

That bothered Draco, that no one cared if a person died in their cellar. He told Luna about it that night.

The evenings were different. Once he began telling Luna about his days, he became truly loquacious in her presence. She heard about the things that bothered him that he couldn't tell anyone else. Professor Burbage's death. Seeing people tortured, even muggles. Living with the thought that he was one misstep away from being the Dark Lord's next target at any given moment.

In return, he heard about her mother's death. About living with a father who was slightly unbalanced. About being alone, and desperately wishing for a friend.

"That's why I tried to talk to you all of last year." She confided. "I needed a friend. By the look of you, you did as well."

"I can't be anyone's friend, Luna. I'm a Death Eater. We don't have friends. Only allies."

She nodded in understanding. "Then I shall be your secret ally."

He smiled sadly. "Thanks."

* * *

One night he was injured in a raid. Just slightly, just enough that someone had to grab him and carry him home. Just enough to be punished for weakness when they returned to the Manor.

He poured out his heart to Luna that night, against the backdrop of Ollivander's coughing, how Draco feared he would die young, would never marry and have children, how he wished the war over, that he was so tired of living this way.

He didn't know how it happened, but in the dim light of his wand, as she looked up at him with compassion and understanding, he saw something else in her eyes. He didn't know what it was, but it made him lean over and gently kiss her.

It didn't mean anything.

Really.

That's what he told himself the next morning when he ordered a house elf to take their tray.

That's what he told himself the next night when he kissed her again.

* * *

Ollivander's cough worsened, and his breathing became raspy. His illness had settled into his lungs.

The man was old. He didn't have a purpose any more. It wouldn't be much of a loss if he died.

That's what Draco told himself.

But his heart still filled with dread every time he started down the stairs.

* * *

The Dark Lord's tasks were becoming darker and darker. Draco's mind rebelled, but he was forced to comply. Failure to do so would result in his death, and probably his mother's as well.

He spent more and more time in the evenings talking with Luna.

Until the night his father came downstairs and demanded to know what on earth was taking forty five minutes to deliver a dinner tray.

Draco was thankful that his father was annoyed and stomped down the steps.

Because if he hadn't given the inadvertent warning, Lucius would have arrived in the cellar to find his son's tongue in Luna's mouth and his hand under her shirt.

Draco explained to Luna that there was an arranged marriage in his future. She hadn't thought much of the future.

Neither of those notions dissuaded them from the breathless snogging sessions.

* * *

Draco realized that people might notice that he spent a little extra time delivering the evening tray to the prisoners. But no one would notice if he slipped back down to the cellar after he was supposed to be retired for the evening.

So that was exactly what he began to do.

He enjoyed spending time talking to Luna. His heart felt lighter after he told her about whatever was bothering him. His mind felt broader as she told him about wrackspurts, nargles and crumple-horned snorkacks. His soul felt peace when he realized that she gave him hope.

His body felt lots of things as they snogged and touched each other. Each night they lost more inhibitions and more clothing, until they were stripping down to their underwear and bringing each other to climax with their hands.

It didn't mean he loved her. It was just hormones.

Really.

* * *

He took to bringing pain potion down to Ollivander every night.

It soothed the old man's coughing and relaxed his breathing for a few hours.

It also made sure the old man slept soundly for a few hours, and didn't interrupt Draco's time with Luna.

He was a Slytherin, after all.

* * *

Draco came downstairs armed with pain potion and a plan for talking Luna into using her mouth for something she had been doing with her hands.

She met him at the door in tears.

"He's dying." she whispered.

He crossed the room, holding her hand, his lit wand held overhead.

Ollivander lay on his pallet, his breath rattling deep in his chest. Draco laid two fingers against the man's throat, feeling that the pulse was faint and irregular.

"He's dying." Draco agreed.

He gently tipped up the man's head, and poured the pain potion into his mouth.

"He won't suffer. He'll go quietly." Draco assured her.

He pulled her into his lap, and they watched for nearly an hour, as the wandmaker's breathing quieted, slowed and eventually stopped.

Luna turned her head into his shoulder, and fell apart in his arms.

It wasn't the way he had wanted to see her come apart that night, but something in his chest swelled and overflowed with warmth, that he was the only one who had seen her like this.

That of all the people in the world she could trust, she chose a Death Eater.

He held her until she had cried it all out, hoping she didn't see that he had shed a few tears as well. They clung to each other a bit longer, until a horrible realization swept over Draco.

"I can't go upstairs and tell them he's dead." he whispered in anguish. "They'll know I've been here. I'm going to have to leave you down here with his body all night."

She kissed him gently. "It's okay. He's so peaceful now." she glanced over at the pallet where her cellmate no longer stirred. "It will be like he's sleeping."

Draco gently lifted her to her feet and led her to her own pallet, where he tucked her in and kissed her goodnight.

He walked up the stairs, wondering when she had become so strong.

Maybe she was all along.

Maybe that's why she tried to be his friend.

* * *

He managed to hold out long enough in the morning that he only came down ten minutes early.

He raced back upstairs, feigning shock and disgust that Ollivander had died during the night.

His father had come downstairs, ordering Pettigrew to remove the man's body. His mother had come down, probably to ensure that nothing more than necessary was soiled. Draco followed them down, loudly proclaiming how Luna had informed him of the old man's passing.

He and Luna had exchanged a glance, for just a heartbeat, no longer.

His mother's eyes narrowed.

* * *

He came down with dinner that night, only staying for a moment.

He came back later, and stayed almost all night.

He had reverently worshiped Luna's body that night, begging her forgiveness, trying to make her forget. He used his mouth, twice, to give her the pleasure she was accustomed to receiving from his fingers.

He didn't ask her to return the favor, but she had, and for a few minutes, Draco probably couldn't have spelled his own name if his life had depended on it.

He transfigured her pallet into a bed wide enough for the two of them, and slept beside her for several hours.

It was because she wasn't used to being alone down there.

Really.

He didn't see his mother sitting in the dark, watching him pass on the way back to his room.

* * *

Narcissa made her way down to the cellar the next day just after Draco left for school.

Luna looked up, startled, as the older woman gracefully walked into the dungeon and looked around.

"So you're alone down here, now?" she asked needlessly.

"Yes." Luna nodded.

"I'm sure it must get lonely." Narcissa clicked her tongue.

"I'll get used to it, I'm sure." Luna watched the woman carefully.

"What have you been doing about taking a bath?" Draco's mother asked. "There's only a toilet and sink down here."

"Yes." Luna agreed. "We mostly just washed up in the sink the best we could. Draco uses a scourgify sometimes if he thinks I'm starting to smell too much."

"You call my son by his first name?" the woman arched an eyebrow at her.

Luna shrugged. "We were at school together. We weren't strangers."

"Your hair needs washing desperately." Narcissa turned up her nose, leaving the cellar as abruptly as she had come.

An elf came down an hour later, casting a few spells to enlarge the bathroom and add a shower. She then unloaded a bag she had brought down, filled with soap, shampoo, conditioner, and feminine products.

"Thank you." Luna said, confused.

The elf gave her a disgusted look and apparated back upstairs.

* * *

"I'll be late tonight." Draco told her when he brought dinner. "We're going on a mission, and I don't know when I'll be back."

"Be safe." she said, kissing him.

It didn't mean anything that she cared whether he came home.

It was just because he fed her.

She didn't feel anything more for him than he did for her.

Really.

* * *

He wasn't late that night.

He came almost at his usual time.

But he had never come with tears streaking down his face before.

She jumped to her feet, throwing her arms around his neck by the time he had unlocked the door.

"Blaise is dead." he wailed into her hair.

"We were set up. They knew we were coming. Blaise is dead."

She smoothed his hair, murmuring nonsense words.

"He's the same age as me. And he's dead."

As she had done two nights earlier, he came apart in her arms. She held him while he cried and told her stories of his friendship with Blaise over the years.

Finally, he fell asleep, and she watched him, as for once his face wasn't tight with stress.

She hated to wake him to send him back upstairs as dawn approached, but she knew she had to.

He crept back to his room to find his mother asleep on his bed. She awoke as he took off his shoes.

"Where were you?" she asked.

"I couldn't sleep." he lied. "I was out walking the grounds."

"Next time," she folded her arms. "look in a mirror before you lie. Your hair is a mess and you have a mark on your cheek from those rough sheets."

Draco froze, unsure how to answer.

"Be careful." she warned, sliding off his bed. "You don't want your father to find out, and you certainly don't want the Dark Lord to find out."

* * *

Draco brought a bottle of firewhiskey the next night.

He had a few shots, and got Luna to try one.

They lay on her pallet, transformed into a bed again, and talked of life and mortality and other maudlin subjects until he fell asleep mid-sentence.

* * *

The next day was Blaise's memorial service.

Draco had come to her that night, as her father would have said, at top speed in all directions. He was nearly twitching with nervous energy.

He also looked as if he might cry at any moment.

"I need you." he whispered, kissing her desperately.

The only answer Luna could give was a faint nod, between his lips crushing hers and his hand in her hair.

They became each other's first lover that night.

* * *

They fell into a routine. A quick snog and a few sentences with breakfast, the same when he brought dinner, and making love when the mansion was asleep. They often talked into the wee hours of the morning.

They talked of the war and Potter and pureblood expectations and dabberblimps and their favorite Bertie Bott's flavour.

It came to the point where neither of them knew any more which side of the war they wanted to win, because one of them would lose.

He never offered to help her escape. She never asked him to. They were content with their stolen moments in the cellar, afraid to ask for anything more.

The weeks passed, and she realized that something life changing had happened to them. Although they had sworn they could tell one another anything, in her heart she knew she had to keep this secret from him. She remained silent about the fact that in the mornings she held her breath until he went back upstairs so the smell of food didn't make her retch in front of him.

He knew something was different, and asked her so many times what was wrong. She assured him that nothing had changed, that it was just the past few months weighing on her. He smuggled flowers down to her. He brought her pudding. One night, he even sneaked her outside and wanted to take her on a broom ride, but she refused. She told him that she was afraid of brooms, and when he pressed the matter, that she was afraid of what would happen to him if they were caught. He knew she was lying, and it hurt him.

But she couldn't tell him the real reason she couldn't get on a broom.

No matter what he did, nothing could quite bring back the happiness in her eyes that had been there before.

He asked his mother about it the next evening, wondering if Luna could have caught whatever Ollivander had. "She's just different. I don't know why and I don't know how, but she is."

His mother told him he was stressed and reading too much into things. The girl had been in a dungeon for months, and had seen her cellmate die. Why would Draco expect her to be happy?

But something niggled at her, so the next morning when Draco left for school, his mother went to the cellar.

The girl did look different, and definitely apprehensive at the arrival of Draco's mother.

Narcissa inquired politely about her health, and had the distinct impression the girl was trying to get rid of her. The lady of the manor walked around the cellar, poking into nooks and corners, not knowing what she sought, but having the feeling that the answer was down there somewhere.

She found it in the bathroom, which still faintly smelled of sickness. She opened the cabinet under the sink and saw the unopened package of feminine products. Luna bit her lip and didn't meet the older woman's eyes.

"You haven't told him, have you?" she asked the girl.

"No." Luna shook her head.

"How could he have been so thoughtless?" his mother sighed. "Clearly it wasn't his head he was thinking with. The Dark Lord would probably overlook him satisfying his lust with a blood traitor, but not a child. He will kill the child, he will probably kill you, and he may kill Draco."

"Don't kill my baby. Please." Luna whispered. "It's your grandchild."

Narcissa's face softened slightly. "It is my grandchild."

She looked at Luna for a long moment. "I will get you out of here before the child begins to show. But you can never tell Draco. The Dark Lord can never find out."

Luna nodded.

"Never." Narcissa repeated before she started up the stairs.

* * *

She tried to act as if everything was all right when he came that evening. She smiled at him, listened to his every word, and responded like it was the first time when he reached for her. But when he held her afterwards, her head cradled against his chest and their baby between them, she realized this was the only time he would ever hold his child. While it was still inside her and he didn't know he held them both.

The tears overflowed her eyes, startling him when the wetness reached his skin.

"What?" he looked over her. "Did I hurt you? What happened?"

"No," she shook her head. "It's just ... this war. Everything. I just wish it was all over. But when it's over, we're going to lose each other."

"We have each other now." he pressed gentle kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. "Please don't cry."

"Just hold me close." she whispered.

* * *

In the early morning hours, when he left and she was alone, she pressed her hand to her belly.

She had always known there was no future for them.

At least she would have their child.

He would be alone.

She must be overly hormonal, because the tears started again.

* * *

Three days later, Narcissa brought Luna out of the cellar and led her out of the kitchen door. She handed Luna a pouch.

"There is money, both wizard and muggle, and a new identification in here. Use them wisely." Narcissa said, turning back toward the house.

"Wait," Luna cried. "Draco won't be blamed..."

"No." Narcissa shook her head. "The story will be that one of our house elves was imperiused by Potter during a trip to Diagon Alley. Go now."

Luna nodded, then turned and walked away from the house, nearly blinded by her tears.

* * *

Draco was told, when he returned home from school, that Luna had escaped.

He flew down the stairs, calling her name.

She was really gone.

He knew why the light had been gone from her eyes.

She had been planning to leave him.

She didn't really love him after all.

* * *

The war ended.

Voldemort lost.

Draco saw her two years later in Diagon Alley. His heart nearly stopped when he saw the platinum blonde toddler in her arms. Now he knew why she had escaped. Maybe she did love him, but their child had needed her more.

He could accept that. Really.

It took all of his willpower not to follow her home.

Because if he had, he probably wouldn't have left.

He couldn't do that, because he had a wedding to attend next week.

His own.

* * *

They saw each other from time to time. They never spoke, but she saw the sadness in his eyes when he looked at their daughter. The same sadness that was in hers whenever she thought of him.

His wedding to society sweetheart Astoria Greengrass was front page news, as was hers to famous naturalist Rolf Scamander, a year later. The births of the Scamander twins two years later and Scorpius Malfoy the year after that also made the news.

Three years later, the world was stunned by the death of Rolf Scamander, killed by a dragon he was trying to relocate to a preserve. Draco attended the funeral, sitting at the back under glamours.

He didn't speak to the grieving widow, nor the man's three children. Not even to the nine year old girl with Draco's eyes, crying over the only father she had known.

The following year, the wizarding world was scandalized, as the Malfoys' second child was born with jet black hair, coal dark eyes, and an uncanny resemblance to a certain Filipino Quidditch player.

Draco's first public appearance afterwards was at a charity dinner dance. He wasn't even sure what they were raising money for.

Half the women gave him pitying looks. The other half threw themselves at him. He threw himself into a bottle of firewhiskey and then another one after that.

Late in the evening, he had just vomited over the side of the balcony and washed his mouth out with more whiskey. He turned back toward the party, and she was there.

"Draco." she smiled at him sadly.

"Luna," the dam broke and the tears overflowed. "Can I tell you about it?"

She nodded, the tears filling her own eyes. She took his hand and apparated them both to the Leaky Cauldron, where he drunkenly poured out all of his heartaches since the day she left, and she told him that his daughter's name was Aurora, named for the light Draco brought to Luna's darkness. He argued that Luna was the light to his darkness.

They made love as the sun rose, and he left while she slept peacefully.

His damned pride would not wait for her to walk out on him again.

Two months later, his divorce final, Draco found himself staring up at Greg Goyle, who seemed to have gotten much taller. Or maybe it was because Draco was laying on the floor of the Hog's Head.

Greg hefted his friend over his shoulder, and apparated them both back to his flat, where he fed Draco Sober Up potion and crackers and announced that he was tired of being called to haul Draco's drunk arse home.

"Whoever the bird is that you've been pining for all these years, go find her." Greg urged. "You're free now from the stupid arranged marriage. Maybe you can make a future with her now."

Draco told him to shut up and mind his own fucking business.

But the next morning, he was standing in the office of The Quibbler.

She looked up when his shadow crossed her desk, a dozen emotions passing through her eyes.

"Was it real, Luna?" he choked out.

"Yes." she breathed.

"Then marry me."

"Okay."


	2. Author's Note

A/N – for those of you who asked me to continue this story, I've written a companion piece called Honourable. You can find the link from my profile.


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